Sunny 4/20

Various weather outlets are calling for sunny skies and a few clouds this afternoon when the clock strikes the holy hour of 4:20 on 4/20.

If the prediction holds, Arcata Police can forgo the galoshes as they work to prohibit the annual mass consumption of Humboldt County’s number one cash crop in Arcata’s Redwood Park this afternoon.

“The damage to the park and forest in past years have been a significant burden on the community,” said Arcata Police Chief Tom Chapman. “Over the past two years we have successfully reduced many of the previous problems associated with this unsanctioned event. We will continue our efforts this year to ensure the safety of the citizens and the protection of public property.”

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I doubt that we’ll ever have it figured out until we see rainy days as: “wonderful weather!” It seems weird to hear people say when it’s raining: “What a crapy day!” or “Don’t ya’ hate this weather?” No, I actually need water to survive, and when it keeps coming down from the sky, I get to live a little longer.
Yeah, yeah; floods. right. But think of it, we can survive a destroying flood. We can live in a water-world. But a world where water becomes scarce? We’re doomed in that scenario. So enjoy the sunshine; and pray for more rain to fall.

Anonymous

April 20, 2012 at 10:07 am

I’m so tired of pot – BFD.
It’s like Humboldt County’s own form of masturbation. And 420 is the yearly circle jerk on Hitler’s birthday.

can u still be u in america where everyone was told they could have a dream come true?

tra

April 20, 2012 at 11:53 pm

“What else in new, Tra ?”

Huh?

Arcata Observer

April 21, 2012 at 7:41 am

The Arcata police pretty much had Redwood Park completely shut down between 4 and 5:30 pm on 4/20. There were lots of signs up saying that the city would strictly enforce laws against public smoking of marijuana. Parking cops were driving around ticketing cars parked near the park. A big flashing sign in Redwood Heights was warning people to stay out of the park and reiterating the strict enforcement line. A police cruiser was parked at the 14th and Union, and the cop was gently bad-vibing a number of scruffy types who were deterred from entering the park.

I saw a couple of our local journalists heading in to the park from the Fickle Hill side looking for a story. Charles Douglas had a camera.

A few young guys came squish-squishing out of the muck and up onto Fickle Hill Rd. They told me the park was full of cops. They blasted off in their hopped-up truck in disgust.

The humorous thought that occurred to me: 4/20 has become the one day each year that Arcata strictly enforces anti-public-pot-smoking laws. You are pretty much safe on any other day.

Arcata Guy

April 21, 2012 at 8:46 am

The town had clearly been “invaded” by a bunch of mostly young white males & females who looked like they hadn’t bathed in a month. They were rude to people on the streets, walking in front of cars as though they owned the road, carrying open beer containers and carrying on as though they owned the town. Several residents told me about very aggressive panhandling, and being yelled and cursed at if they didn’t fork over money.
Personally, I could care less if they want to light up, but they show ZERO respect for the Park, for the town, and for the residents. These are not “kids from the college”. These are arrogant, obnoxious boors; “transients” of the lowest order. I hope it rains and washes these bums into the gutter…take that back, they would pollute our storm drains.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 11:09 am

Fixed for 8:46am:

“Every 4/20 the internet is clearly “invaded” by a bunch of mostly old white males & females who sound like they haven’t had a good time in years. They are rude to people on the streets, dispensing hate to peole who could be their friends and neighbors and business associates, talking like they own the town. Several residents told me about aggressive police activity and being harrassed and fined for nothing other than having marijuana on them.

Personally, I couldn’t care less if they want to talk shit, but they show ZERO respect for the people. These are not “intelligent adults”. These are ignorant, obnoxious boors…”sophisticates” ofthe lowest order. I hope it keeps raining so those spiteful souls stay inside…take that back, I don’t care about them at all.”

High Finance

April 21, 2012 at 11:23 am

“Intelligent” and “Pot Smoker” should never be mentioned in the same sentence.

SmokeMonster

April 21, 2012 at 12:38 pm

In that case high fi,neither should “alcoholic” and “intelligent”.

I’m sure you considered Steve Jobs a blooming idiot as he made gajillions while smoking and dropping LSD.

Im sure there are as many if not more people in the US that waste their lives away getting shitfaced drunk daily as their are stereotypical stoner burnouts.

“Intelligent” and “Pot Smoker” should never be mentioned in the same sentence.

Tell that to Carl Sagan’s ghost.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Smoking pot does not negate someone being intelligent, but it also does not make someone intelligent. Kids think they’re cool when they smoke pot even though they are still the same knuckleheads they were prior to lighting up. People my age (40s-50s) think they aren’t stagnant middle-agers if they smoke pot, but many are. It’s just a weed and not a means of enlightenment or status. Get over it – at least holidays about alcohol (New Year’s Eve, St Patrick’s Day) have a pretense about something else. They’re not just holidays to celebrate the act of getting shitfaced.

Percy

April 21, 2012 at 3:54 pm

You can get as “shitfaced” as you want on both alcohol or pot. A couple of tokes is like a beer, it won’t affect your intelligence either way. More might make you lethargic, but definitely not as combative as more alcohol. We’re all big boys and girls and can decide for ourselves if and how much we want to alter our reality for a bit and how.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 4:05 pm

Thing is 335 nor everyone who tokes get shitfaced just like every imbiber of Alcohol doesn’t get drunk. It’s just that drunks are so disagreeable and the worst thing an overly stoned person does is
go to sleep. Big difference and I dare say you wouldn’t be able to tell when most stoners are under the influence. Can’t say the same about your buddies on St. Pat’s or New Years can you? Talk about stagnant, your ideas could use a little updating. Have you asked kids if they think they are cool when smoking pot? Maybe they just enjoy the high like the rest of us. I think kids should abstain from all mind altering substances but we all know that that will never happen. However, I would certainly rather see them take a few tokes than drink a 6 pack.

High Finance

April 21, 2012 at 6:28 pm

Everyone who “tokes” does so to get high. Else why smoke the dope ? It certainly isn’t for the taste.

Anybody who has a beer or a Scotch does so to get drunk has a drinking problem. But most don’t, they have that drink because they like the taste.

It isn’t hard to see the vast difference. Be honest & just admit it.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 6:38 pm

High is higher than a kite. So typical of a drug addict to defend their own favorite drug while denouncing the favorite drug of others. Its a fact that alcohol causes more violence and deaths than any other drug. If you drink an ounce of Scotch “for the taste,” you’re still getting the buzz from the alcohol – or your tolerance would indicate you probably drink a lot. I’ve never met anyone who, on first tasting alcohol, thought it tasted good. Not beer, not scotch, not vodka. Furthermore, I’ve never known anyone who thought pot (or cigarettes) tasted good the first time. The first drink, like the last, is taken for the buzz. Humanity, and many other species, have always and will always look for ways to alter their reality. Whether its altered by booze or herbs and regardless whether the user claims the buzz is incidental or the primary goal, it’s still altered.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 8:12 pm

Most people drink alcohol for the taste? Ridiculous. Look at the biggest-selling beers and wines, like Budweiser and Gallo. Nope, most alcohol is consumed in order for the consumer to get a buzz, just as has always been the case for many thousands of years. Even most of those who drink good-tasting alcohol are drinking it to get a buzz, the fact that it tastes good is just a nice bonus.

Anonymous

April 21, 2012 at 8:26 pm

My god, haven’t you ever heard of having your cake and eating it too?

High Finance

April 22, 2012 at 2:07 pm

Sounds like you have a drinking problem as well as being a pot head 6.38pm.

What Now

April 22, 2012 at 6:47 pm

My mother died 20 years ago this month.
For the last 2+ years of her life, she fought a valiant struggle with cancer.
She was given marinol (pure thc) for pain and nausea of chemo-therapy and radiation, however marinol’s side effects include nausea, vertigo and panic attacks.
Someone offered her baked marijuana which she was able to ingest and found extreme relief from both the side effects of chemicals and 2nd and 3rd degree burns from radiation.
Her oncologist had been in practice almost 20 years and told us he’d NEVER had a patient complete 3 rounds of each therapy and he’d rarely seen a patient of any age, let alone one in their mid to late 60’s, deal with the process with such good spirits.

Advocates of prohibiting cannabis use for MANY medical reasons are, for the most part, closed minded, misinformed, or simply incapable of intellectual honesty.
The western world is crippled by it’s insistence that in order to benefit from some aspect of nature they 1st have to kill it and then synthesize a substitute that can be marketed for grotesque and obscene profits.

Mitch

April 22, 2012 at 7:53 pm

What Now,

I’m glad pot helped your mother deal with her cancer and with her cancer treatment.

There is no reason for the government to make medical marijuana illegal. It’s beyond outrageous. However, there is also no reason for the government to make “enjoyment” marijuana illegal. It’s all basic insanity, forced upon us by the money used by threatened industries to manipulate our corrupted political systems.

The western world doesn’t have any insistence that you have to kill the natural solution and synthesize a highly-profitable substitute — that’s a result of legislators purchased by the pharmaceutical industry, not the “western world.” Nor is the western world crippled by closed-mindedness about pot — that’s a result of legislators purchased by the alcohol industry, not the “western world.”

It’s just the usual crooks.

Personally, I think pot should be decriminalized but not legalized, because I don’t think the usual crooks should be able to take over the pot industry, which is exactly what will happen once full legalization takes place.

I don’t want Joe Camel pushing pot to junior high kids. They’ll smoke plenty without Joe’s help, but Joe would convince them to smoke way more than they would on their own, and would convince them that anyone that chose not to smoke was a boring downer, as opposed to a kid capable of having a good time without drugs.

I think we need to develop a societal understanding that certain things should be free to do, and even free to profit from, but must remain out of the hands of large profit-making business entities.

Gambling, for starters. (Like that’s going to happen. Gambling is our society’s solution to how to fund education!)

We seem to almost get it with things like fishing licenses that allow you to take only a certain number of a given species, but we can only justify such laws under our legal system based on the scarcity of the species. Nothing in our legal system seems up to challenging the nature of large-scale capitalism — such challenges are too, well, “challenging” for our owners.

Hey, HiFi, I love the taste of good scotch and cognac, too. But I didn’t have to be trained to appreciate the taste of chocolate, or strawberries, or apples.

What Now

April 22, 2012 at 8:14 pm

Mitch, we have a lot of common ground on what you states above and some small differences.
My biggest concern are uniformed, ignorant people running around denying relief to people in pain or discomfort.

I believe that most historical and anthropological evidence indicates our specie decided to settle into agrarian societies in order to insure the availability not only of food sources, but those substances necessary for medical, therapeutic,and religious or mystical rituals as well as those that are purely recreational.
The oldest sites being explored in eurasia and the indian sub continent reinforce that conjecture.
Likewise, the locations for many pre-western societies and cultures in the western hemisphere lend strong credence to the belief as well whether it be tobacco, jimson weed, cannabis, coca or hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The problem arises with eurocentric insistence that there can’t possibly be an inherent value in something that’s available to all without being subjected to control and market speculation for the benefit of a few.

Mitch

April 22, 2012 at 8:56 pm

I agree there’s a ton of common ground.

Thing is, drinking water hasn’t been outlawed yet, despite the remarkable development of a bottled water industry. Nor has air, despite the even more remarkable development of the Oxygen Bar to service those occupying the intersection of extremely-great-wealth and extraordinary-idiocy. So I’m not sure that there’s a “eurocentric insistence that there can’t possibly be an inherent value in something that’s available to all…” I’ll grant you that public water fountains have become more scarce with time, and European restaurants no longer think any customer would like free tap water as opposed to a beer-priced delicious glass of bottled water.

There is certainly a strange willingness in our government to let profit-seekers shaft everyone else. I’m not sure if that’s “eurocentric” or not. (I do love Gandhi’s famous comment, when asked on his arrival in Britain what he thought of “Western Civilization.” He said, “I think it would be a good idea.”)

What Now

April 23, 2012 at 11:52 am

Good points, Mitch.
To some degree, it takes a bored MBA (or like mind) to have a “light bulb” moment to “invent” a market. whether it be pet rocks or bottled drinking water “at the source” which is often an unnamed “municipal source.”
Mitch, check out the laws regulating the collection and use of rainfall in the state of Washington.